Sure, there’s a middle ground — actually, any number of possible middle grounds. A good example would be the interest I have with a weather forecast. I rarely find it fascinating or have it engage my interest to a marked degree, yet at the same time it’s not garbage unworthy of being mentioned.

In this case, probably the best middle ground is a noncommittal “huh.” It’s a reasonable reaction to file this kind of story away for future reference without adopting a final explanation at this point. I can easily come up with a half dozen possibilities, some of which I think more likely than others, but I have no reason to commit to any of them.

I do notice, though, that Donnie and Lynne assume that the telepathic voice was coming from the Bigfoot, but the words spoken by that voice in the story do not unambiguously indicate that they come from the Bigfoot.

Interesting post. I’ve encountered this kind of thing myself personally and I have no explanation for it as it’s beyond our current understanding.

It happened in August of 2010 and in June of 2011 a different specimen ran us out of the same camp in the early evening with intimidation so go figure.

We’ll need to wait to see if Dr. Ketchum’s DNA analysis holds up until 2017 and if so then microbiology tools will enable us to take a good and long look at the paternal DNA. If we can’t find a match perhaps it may be shown to be not of the Earth.

If so then we’ll have a clearer understanding of some of these odd things. My best,

]]>By: DWAhttp://cryptomundo.com/bigfoot/when-bigfoot-talks-kind-of/comment-page-1/#comment-87592
Sat, 04 May 2013 16:38:08 +0000http://cryptomundo.com/?p=66983#comment-87592“There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that it’s a story which will polarize readers into two camps: (a) those who find it intriguing; and (B) those who think it’s garbage and not even worthy of comment. As for middle-ground? I’d say no way; there is none. You either go with these type of stories or you don’t.”

See, no. There’s this middle ground. It’s called “critical thinking.” In fact, (a) might actually be considered this way, but it isn’t. This is potentially disastrous to scientific endeavor, as I will show anon.

The fundamental problem of the 21st century – which has leached into every aspect of our lives, from science and technology to The Big Questions – is the failure of critical thinking. Scientists may be surprised to find that they are a primary cause of the problem.

Most scientific endeavor moves incrementally from what is known to what follows from what is known, to create an expansion of what is known. It has been called, understandably if a bit incorrectly, “piling certainty on certainty to come up with certainty.” That’s not quite it. But it is this: taking what scientists know; incorporating “new” observations with which they are comfortable; postulating theories to explain the “new” observations, again extrapolating from what is known; and moving from theory to expanded scientific canon.

The problem comes when the “new” observations are things scientists aren’t comfortable with. Things like, you know, bigfoot, compounded in this instance with something that sounds clearly woo-woo, OK, paranormal.

Then we see two polarized extremes as in (a) and (b) above, with no middle ground. My problem is with (a).

————————————–
This is interesting. I’m not “a believer.” But as a scientist, there are things in this new observation that I find, yes, intriguing. Using what I know, I can see that the things I find intriguing, I have reason to, as this new observation may be, yes, totally explainable in terms of what we know. That’s interesting.
————————————–

And what happens? “This is intriguing” becomes “I am a Believer Who Has Gone Over To The Dark Side.” Which is, of course, the true (a), I Swallow This Hook Line And Sinker.

It is disastrous to scientific endeavor when new observations with which scientists just don’t bother to make themselves comfortable get reduced to toddler-level oscillations between raging uncritical advocacy and raging uncritical disbelief. And simple curiosity gets automatically tarred with the former brush.

]]>By: Goodfoothttp://cryptomundo.com/bigfoot/when-bigfoot-talks-kind-of/comment-page-1/#comment-87572
Fri, 03 May 2013 19:49:43 +0000http://cryptomundo.com/?p=66983#comment-87572I’m aware of similar stories. And, since my lone definite Bigfoot experience entails hearing (but not seeing – I was paralyzed, though I wouldn’t exactly call it fear) what I took to be a family group speak to one another over a few minutes’ time, I’m not going to dispute it.
]]>